Kosmos

Culture, travel, fashion and culinary delights: the Kosmos pages of Lufthansa Magazin bring you interesting and useful tidbits from around the world

Fine dining

Hamburg likes to call itself “The Gateway to the World”, which detractors say begins outside the city limits … Hamburg does have delicious, cosmopolitan food, though – for instance at Nikkei Nine at the Fairmont Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in the city center, which was recently awarded two toques by the Gault & Millau restaurant guide.

Nordic skiing

Denmark, a skiers’ paradise? Yes, but without the snow and only on top of a biomass power plant in Copenhagen harbor. The Copenhill Mountain Activity Centre’s plastic piste, designed by the famous Bjarke Ingles Group (BIG), is 85 meters high and 500 meters long.

Cheesy

Fossa, a sweetly pungent cheese from Sogliano near Rimini, matures in pits. Legend has it that the townfolk buried their cheeses to safeguard them from plundering invaders – and then discovered they tasted better than ever.

Spanish steppe cheese

Tens of thousands of merino sheep graze on the arid plains of the Extremadura. Their milk is used to produce La Serena cheese, wich owes its somewhat bitter flavor to the thistle-based vegetable rennet used in its production.

Norwegian world champion

Fanaost, winner of the World Cheese Awards 2018, is a gouda made near Bergen using the milk of only 12 cows. Experts rank Norway as one of the best cheesemaking nations in the world.

Culture clash

Suffering from writer’s block and need a change of scene? Here are three magnificent houses where bestsellers were written – and you can even rent some by the day:

Goldeneye, Jamaica

Ian Fleming, a British ex-spy, wrote all 14 of his James Bond novels here in the Caribbean – and even designed the villa himself. theflemingvilla.com

Naulakha, Vermont/USA

Rudyard Kipling didn’t actually write the legendary Jungle Book in India, but in the U.S. He nicked the name of his villa there from a marble pavilion in Lahore, the still part of India. The villa sleeps eight people. landmarktrustusa.org

Royal Albion Hotel, England

Charles Dickens adored Broadstairs, a seaside resort in Kent, and spent many summers at the Royal Albion Hotel. A Dickens Festival is being held here in his honor from 21 through 23 June. albionbroadstairs.co.uk